


all the laws we once obeyed, they have betrayed us

by celaenos



Series: chirp on about good bones [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Friends With Benefits, Friendship, Gen, Post-Hogwarts, stumbling towards adulthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 22:03:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20320222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celaenos/pseuds/celaenos
Summary: “You’re dressed fabulously,” she acquiesces. “You always are. But you don’t look good, Pans. You look… lost.”“And you?” Pansy fires back.Astoria laughs. A bitter, ragged thing that hurts Pansy’s chest. “I’ve been lost for years now, Pans. I think we all have. Difference is, I’m not pretending.”[pansy, after hogwarts, part 2]





	all the laws we once obeyed, they have betrayed us

**Author's Note:**

> aaaand finally, here is the final prequel bit. iiiiii make no promises as to when the main pansy/hermione story will start up, i want to get a few chapters under my belt first, and i have other fic things i wanna write before i delve into this massive thing, but... slowly but surely folks<3

Pansy doesn’t know how to parse her feelings as she sits down in her childhood bedroom.

Her mother is downstairs, lounging in a silk robe and sipping her tea and reading the Daily Prophet like she does every morning. Pansy couldn’t sleep last night. She woke up three times; first at the sound of the rain, then with a desperate urge to stumble her way to the lavatory, and the third time she doesn’t know what it was that woke her, only that she couldn’t fall back asleep after the fact.

Sometime around six-forty a.m., Pansy gives up trying and heads downstairs into the kitchens. Sylvie isn’t here yet. Pansy doesn’t know what time she arrives every morning, but Mother never was one for waking particularly early, so she doubts Sylvie will be here for an hour or so, at least.

Pansy spells herself some tea and starts puttering around the kitchen. She’s never bothered to do this before, Sylvie has been there and cooked for Pansy her entire life. She’s only even gone into the kitchens maybe a handful of times. She doesn’t know where anything is located. It takes her a solid half-hour to find all of the ingredients and utensils that she wants and then she’s making herself a breakfast that Gilda would scoff at but smile at her for, later.

Pansy sets herself up in the dining room and is sipping on her tea and halfway through her omelet when Sylvie walks into the house and stares at her. 

“Miss?” is all she says, head tilted to the side in complete confusion.

“I learnt to cook,” Pansy shrugs and takes another bite.

Sylvie doesn’t seem to know what to make of that statement.

…

…

Daphne and Astoria shut themselves up inside of their house with their parents. Pansy hardly sees either of them for the first few weeks they’re home. It’s very strange, to go from seeing Daphne every single day for two years, to nothing for nearly a month. She _Floos _Daph and finds her vibrating with anxiety, she can hear Astoria and her parents screaming at each other in the background.

“Sorry,” Daphne says. “It’s… been like this.”

“Want to come here?”

“No, I—” she turns around for a moment. When Pansy can see her face again, it’s pinched. “I can’t leave Ria here alone anymore,” she says, quiet and guilt-ridden.

“She can come too,” Pansy says, easy.

“Pans…” Daphne sighs.

“No, yeah, whatever,” Pansy says, quickly. Before Daphne can finish that sentence. “I’m going to Draco’s; my mother is driving me nuts. Call me later if you want to do something.”

She hangs up before Daphne can respond, her chest tight.

…

…

Draco is being annoying.

He’s decided to take up reading philosophy books and Pansy has already thrown one of them into the fireplace.

Now he won’t speak to her.

The two of them are sitting in the Malfoy parlor, on opposite couches, silently fuming. Draco is reading another book, holding it up very pointedly so Pansy can see the long obnoxious title. Pansy is spelling the fire to change colors every few seconds, bored out of her bloody mind.

Coming home was a mistake.

“Then go back to bloody America,” Draco snaps. Pansy realizes that she has said that particular thought out loud. She turns the fire bright vivid purple hue and doesn’t look at him.

“Perhaps I will.”

Draco slams his book shut and stands. “Do whatever you want Pansy, but at least do _something._”

“Fuck you,” she snaps. “Is this you _doing something?_” she rises and is in his personal space in an instant, staring up at him with a snarl. He’s nearly a full foot taller than her, a fact that has been deathly annoying since it happened, the summer that they turned fourteen. “You’ve been cooped up in this house with your parents for the last two years licking your wounds and you’re telling _me _to do something?”

For a single heartbeat, Pansy thinks that maybe Draco is going to slap her in the face. He’s never hit her before. Pansy’s never seen him actually hit anyone. Draco’s not violent in that way; he’s violent with his words. But there is a flare to his eyes and a beat when they just stare at each other and Pansy feels herself flinch. Draco’s eyes widen in surprise and he stumbles back from her.

“I wouldn’t,” he says, knowing—somehow—what Pansy had been thinking. “Fuck you Pans,” he snarls. “I _wouldn’t._”

“I know,” she says. “I’m—” Pansy sighs. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she admits. Draco stays right where he is, but his body softens towards her, just a tick. “Leaving didn’t help. Coming back isn’t helping. Nothing is helping.”

“For me either,” he admits, voice choking on the words.

“Fuck the Dark Lord,” Pansy says, quiet, but clear. Draco flinches and Pansy walks past him, reaches up on her toes and kisses his cheek, then _Apparates _home.

…

…

Pansy spends the entire autumn like that, restless and prickly, circling around her mother and Draco and the Greengrass girls but spending the majority of her time alone.

It’s not pleasant.

She learns thirty-seven new recipes, though. Sylvie has accepted her presence in the kitchen and fetches groceries when Pansy asks it of her, but still looks mildly insulted when Pansy cooks for herself. Her mother tells Pansy to stay out of the kitchen and stop acting like a servant and refuses to eat a single thing that Pansy makes.

So, Pansy cooks more and more, naturally.

Sometime near the end of autumn, Astoria shows up at her door, Daphne, Ginny Weasley, and Neville Longbottom in tow. Sylvie turns around and gapes at Pansy and says nothing when she puts on a fabulously ostentatious yellow coat and struts out of the house. Ginevra raises an eyebrow at her, amused, and Longbottom just looks confused at the turn of events that have lead him to the steps of the Parkinson manor.

“Where are we going?” she asks Astoria and Daphne.

“Café ‘round the corner from Neville’s,” Astoria answers, looping her arm with Pansy’s. “You’ll like it.”

“We’ll see,” she says, staring daggers at Longbottom. She actually hears him audibly gulp in response. Hum, this might turn out to be fun after all. 

Ginevra, Longbottom, and Astoria spend the entire afternoon with their limbs continuously tangled. Ginevra eats off Astoria’s plate without asking. Neville passes her the sugar before she can ask for it. Astoria pointedly holds a waiting glass of milk when Ginevra decides she wants to try some sort of jalapeño dish and refuses to admit that it is a flaming monstrosity in her mouth until she’s crying uncontrollably and Neville is laughing at her as Astoria shoves milk down her throat. The last two years that Pansy spent away traveling, Astoria spent growing closer to Gryffindors. Pansy knew that, objectively. She knew it the year prior, when they were all still at Hogwarts and Astoria would disappear with those two and come back with scrapes and cuts and the Carrows spitting mad.

It’s one thing to know it. It’s another thing entirely to witness firsthand.

Longbottom starts asking Pansy about America and she wants to snap and tell him to fuck off but then Astoria kicks her underneath the table. So, she finds herself telling him about plants in Maine that are edible.

They’ve been talking animatedly for a solid half-hour about fucking plants and recipes before Pansy even realizes it.

_Merlin’s beard, _she _likes _Longbottom.

What a terrible revelation to have.

…

…

Christmas goes about the same as Christmases tend to go for the Parkinson women.

That is, they sit together in stilted silence at a long ornate table full of food, exchange presents that are equal parts the only ways either of them knows how to say, ‘_I love you’_ and _‘you disappoint me’ _all in one perfectly packaged article of clothing, and then listen to a radio drama before drinking themselves into a catatonic sleep.

Pansy wakes on Boxing Day with a hangover fit for the gods, her mouth feeling like cotton as she promptly vomits into the waste bin beside her bed. She hauls herself up off the floor, spells the mess clean and stumbles into the bath. Pansy sits in the bubbles and the water until well past the moment any warmth might be left to be found, her skin full of wrinkles that are turning into craters. She dresses slowly, drawing out the process and trying on multiple outfits before deciding on a strapless emerald green dress that feels like silk kissing her skin and a stark white fur jacket. Pansy paints her face—thick, black everywhere—and saunters downstairs for the first time at half-past four in the afternoon.

Sylvie has breakfast waiting. Somehow. 

Pansy eats it slowly, her eyes boring holes into the back of her mother’s skull and then she walks back upstairs and doesn’t come back down again. Repeating the process. Makeup removed, clothes peeled off, back into a long bath, then back into bed.

Pansy stares at herself in the mirror before she crawls back into bed. She can hear her mother singing to herself downstairs—an old, old song in a dead language that echoes through the walls. Pansy listens and stares at herself; there’s a traumatized half-dead thing to the look on her face. She can’t stand the sight of it. She crawls into bed naked, pulling the covers up underneath her chin and stares at the ceiling until her eyes finally close sometime around five a.m.

…

…

The Parkinson women repeat the process daily until New Years’ Eve.

Astoria _Apparates _into Pansy’s bathroom and glares at her. “I’m indecent,” Pansy snaps, from the bath. An opera is blasting with melancholy as loud as the woman’s lungs will allow—Pansy is trying to drown out competing music that her mother is playing downstairs. It’s a battle they’ve been at since one p.m.

“Please,” Astoria scoffs. “It’s nothing I’ve never seen before.” She walks over, hooks her arm around Pansy’s elbow and promptly yanks her out of the water, Pansy screeching at her the entire time. Astoria looks like a gangly fragile thing, but she’s got secret muscles somewhere. “You’re coming to Draco’s party,” she orders. “I’m not dealing with everyone on my own.”

“Where’s Daph?”

“She’s coming too. Get up and get dressed.”

“You’ve become really fucking annoying.”

“So have you,” Astoria snaps back. “I’ll be back to get you in an hour. Be ready.”

“Fuck you,” Pansy says to the empty bathroom.

She doesn’t know who the supposed ‘everyone’ is, now that half or more of the people she’s grown up with have been whisked off to Azkaban or on dead or on the run, but no way she is waltzing into the remains unless she’s looking nothing short of fabulous.

She chooses a deep, deep violet gown that shimmers in the light and sometimes looks blacker than it is. Her eye makeup is severe to match; three separate shades of purple—the royal hue—and eyeliner that has wings to die for. She wavers over a shocking red lip or a black one and decides to go with the color of her soul, for the full dramatic effect. Her hair is down. She’s let it grow long in the last two years, pin-straight and jet black and slippery with shine, Pansy combs through it and stares at her reflection in the mirror.

“Fuck this,” she mumbles to herself and drapes fur across her shoulders as Astoria _Apparates _back into her room, in a simple but elegant black dress with her hair pulled back in a headband.

“You look good,” Astoria says.

“I always look good.”

“You don’t, though,” Astoria says, holding Pansy’s gaze. Pansy scoffs and Astoria only gives her a small, sad smile in return. “You’re dressed fabulously,” she acquiesces. “You always are. But you don’t look good, Pans. You look… lost.”

“And you?” Pansy fires back.

Astoria laughs. A bitter, ragged thing that hurts Pansy’s chest. “I’ve been lost for years now, Pans. I think we all have. Difference is, I’m not pretending.”

Pansy stares at Astoria and says nothing, blinks back a wave of tears she doesn’t have the time to indulge in right now. “I’m perfectly fine,” she says. Smiles at Astoria and refuses to feel guilty about the lie.

Astoria frowns at her but doesn’t argue. Not now. Pansy’s known her all her life, she’s not letting this one go, she’s just waiting for the perfect opportunity to pounce. Astoria loops her arm through Pansy’s and they_ Apparate _to the Greengrass manor.

Pansy’s mother is already there. Of course.

Pansy ignores her and walks arm in arm with Astoria over to Daphne, Blaise, Theo, and Draco. The only ones left, as far as Pansy can see at a quick glance. This party is depressing and fake, more so than ever. The Malfoys are hobnobbing with Pansy’s mother and the Greengrass parents, but they all look like actors playing a part they don’t know how they found themselves in. Pansy watches her mother roll her eyes at something Daph’s mum says and walk away to get more champagne.

Blaise and Theo are bickering about something with Daphne. Astoria plucks an appetizer out of Theo’s palm and pops it into her mouth, shifting the conversation with ease. Pansy leans into Draco’s side, ignoring them all.

“This party sucks,” she mumbles.

“You look great though,” Draco smirks back. His arm snakes around her on instinct, despite the fact that they’re in public.

“So do you,” Pansy says, looking him up and down. “Nice tie.”

It’s purple too. Sometimes, it makes Pansy laugh the way their minds match up.

The party is dull and pathetic. The parents spend the hours pretending both that nothing whatsoever has changed, even though there are dozens of people missing who should be here, and that they can just ease themselves into this new world order, same as ever.

It’s bullshit and everyone in the room knows it, but they’re all pretending just the same. Pansy included.

Astoria catches Pansy’s eye across the dinner table and raises her eyebrows. A challenge. Pansy reaches over Blaise and takes his bourbon and chugs it in one gulp. Astoria doesn’t look at or talk to her again for the rest of the night. Pansy doesn’t feel like she’s won anything at all.

…

…

Winter consists of long drawn out months that have Pansy and her mother circling each other like cats. They were never meant to share a home this many months out of the year, that much is becoming very apparent. Where Pansy and her mother fight by blasting combative operas, drinking themselves into stupors, and running up the water bills, Astoria fights with her parents with violent rows that leave her hoarse and sobbing in Daphne’s arms.

It’s getting worse. Daphne shows up in Pansy’s room and breaks down crying. “I can’t do this anymore, Pans. They hate each other now. Mum locked her in her bedroom today and she said if I let her out they’d lock me in till I behaved too.”

“What?” Pansy scoffs. “That’s bullshit. You’re not children sent to bed without supper.”

“No, worse,” Daph knocks her head against Pansy’s shoulder. “We’re adults now. Which they’ve made very clear. They’ve threatened to kick Ria out if she doesn’t stop being friends with Granger and keeps dishonoring the Dark Lord.”

Pansy rolls her eyes. “He _lost._ Tell your parents to pick a new team.”

“I have. They… I don’t remember them being like this when I was little.”

“War changes people,” Pansy says, low. Daphne stares up at her. “You can sleepover, if you want.”

“I can’t leave Ria.”

“_Appareate _in.”

“They spelled it so she can’t get out. I can’t get in, either.”

“Well, Ria’s tough as nails and she’ll be fine for one night. She’ll cool off, they’ll cool off and it’ll blow over in the morning.”

Daphne looks forlorn as she curls into Pansy’s side, tugging the covers up over them both. “I don’t think so,” she whispers.

…

…

The weather begins to warm and the Greengrass girls’ moods lift, but only marginally.

Astoria and Daphne start spending time at the Parkinson manor more than their own home, to the delight of both Pansy and her mother. Their strange ritual standoffs don’t exactly cease, but they do taper down to a smaller scale.

It works, for a few weeks.

Astoria goes home to get a jumper, of all things, and then all hell finally breaks loose. By the time that Daphne and Pansy get there, she’s pulled her wand on her parents, and theirs are already drawn too. Daphne screams at the sight, a guttural, horrible noise that Pansy never wants to hear again, and throws herself in between her parents and her sister.

“Both of you then,” their father growls. “Leave.”

“Papa—” Daphne croaks.

“Fine,” Astoria snaps. “Rot in Azkaban.” She _Apparates _into her room, shoves things blindly into bags in seconds and does the same in Daphne’s after catching her eye. Pansy stands there awkwardly, holding onto Daphne and trying to meld into the carpet.

Astoria is back in a flash, bags hovering around her and two slung over her shoulders, expression deadly as she glares at her parents, wands still drawn. Pansy and her mother have had terrible rows before, but her mother has never, ever, pulled a wand on her apart from one incident that snapped Pansy’s mouth shut for half an hour when she was thirteen. Pansy grabs Astoria’s hand, tangled between the Greengrass girls, she _Apparates _back to her bedroom, all three of them shaking.

“Fuck,” Daphne breathes.

…

…

They _could _just stay at the Parkinson manor, except that they can’t.

The three of them spend the rest of the afternoon shaken, Daphne cries and screams at Astoria and then hugs her until they both fall asleep in Pansy’s bed. She walks downstairs quietly, tip-toeing until she accidentally runs into her mother.

“Darling,” she says, “I’ve spoken to Eliza.”

_Fuck. _Of course, Mrs. Greengrass _Flooed _here. Pansy squares her shoulders and glares at her mother, daring her to say it. Instead of the clipped brush off that Pansy expects, her mother steps forward and tugs Pansy gently into her arms. Pansy doesn’t know how to respond. They don’t hug, as a rule. Pansy can’t remember the last time her mother did this when it wasn’t in greeting or in public for appearances.

“I’ve always hated that woman,” she whispers into Pansy’s temple. “I’m sorry dear, but they cannot stay here. At least, not now. Not until things blow over.”

Pansy pulls back a bit to look at her mother’s face. “But they _could?_” she prods. Her mother only shrugs in response and pulls away completely.

“I assume that you’ll be going with them?”

“Obviously,” Pansy snaps. 

“_Floo _me whenever you need money. Be safe,” she says. Her fingers trace Pansy’s chin and for once, Pansy doesn’t go harsh or shove her away. She thinks about the way Eliza Greengrass screeched at her daughters, about the twisted, visceral look she gave them. Pansy’s mother has never been maternal, or soft, or loving in any way, but Pansy knows to her core that she would never abandon her.

“Take care of yourself, Mama,” she says.

Her mother blinks at her in surprise at the old moniker, but then merely smiles in response, before walking out of the room and leaving Pansy there alone. She stands there for a single moment and then turns on her heels and walks back to her bedroom. It’s cramped. Astoria sprawls out and lies on top of people and takes up all the space she can. She always has. Pansy shoves her over and lies down, listening to the sounds of her friends’ breathing until she’s out cold.

…

…

They go back to America.

It’s not Pansy’s idea.

Astoria and Daphne wake up the next morning and Pansy says nothing about her late-night conversation with her mother but they all _knew _anyway. The Greengrass’s are still a prominent family, as much as Pansy’s mother doesn’t give a shit about them, there are unspoken rules and traditions that she can’t fuck with on her own. They grab some maps and start whispering about places they might want to go and Pansy ignores them both, lounging in a kaftan and sipping her tea. “It was fun when I spent the part of the summer with you in America,” Astoria says, after they’ve decided that Italy, Scotland, and Moscow have to be taken off of the list, because their parents travel there occasionally.

“There are loads of other places that we could go,” Pansy argues. “What about… Berlin? I’ve only been once and I was too young to remember. Let’s go there!”

“It’s not a terrible idea—” Daphne starts, but Astoria has already pulled out a map of New England and is going on and on about something the Carrow twins told her about Salem and her eyes are doing that twinkling thing that neither of them has ever historically been able to resist, so.

“Massachusetts, it is.” Pansy rolls her eyes. 

…

…

They don’t live in Salem—Pansy vetoes it, since she is the only one of them who has any money and will have to be paying their way. Pansy wants decadence and to make her mother furious, so she finds them a stunning, historic, brick row house in Beacon Hill, Boston.

It costs a fortune. The witch who rents it to Pansy tries to squeeze as much out of them as she can, but Pansy gives her not a cent more than the original asking price and spells the front door so she can’t come in with something that Astoria learned from Hermione Granger.

Daphne squeals in delight when they walk through the place for the first time and Astoria rolls her eyes.

“This is way more than we need, Pans,” she says, but she’s grown up the same as all of them, and she’s used to a certain way of life. Despite her claims—as true as they are—she is as sheltered (if not more so, at this point) as Daphne and Pansy.

“We’re going to need a lot of plants,” Daphne decides.

“I’m going to go get groceries,” Pansy announces. “This kitchen is _mine._”

“Ours,” Daphne counters.

“I bought it, darling,” Pansy reminds her. “That room is fucking mine.”

Astoria rolls her eyes and walks over to drape herself around Pansy. She kisses her cheek and squeezes her tightly from behind. “Are we allowed to eat in your domain?”

“Yes,” Pansy says, reaching up and grabbing Astoria’s hands out of habit. “So long as you know that it’s mine.”

“Fine with me,” she chirps. “I can’t cook and don’t plan on learning how!”

Daphne opens the window and crawls out. “THERE’S A BALCONY HERE!?”

Astoria runs after her sister and Pansy can’t help the smile that breaks out onto her face. Maybe this will be a good thing, after all. The Greengrass’s will come to their senses eventually and they’ll get to have a place of their own for a while.

…

…

Daphne fills her bedroom, the living room, the balcony, and one small corner of the kitchen with plants. It feels like they live in a fucking greenhouse, but it smells nice, so Pansy leaves her to it. Daph has never been particularly fond of botany before, but Pansy never used to cook, so.

People grow and change, Pansy is doing her best to embrace it.

(Astoria keeps trying to get Daphne to befriend Neville Longbottom. Neither Daph nor Pansy are quite ready for _that _amount of growing and changing, just yet). 

Astoria leaves books lying around everywhere—muggle books, wizarding books, textbooks she borrowed from Granger’s university, Pansy has to step around things and put bookmarks in paperbacks that Astoria just leaves, turned over and waiting for her to pick back up again. She also befriends the wizard couple that lives in the house to the right of them. She comes back home a few days after they’ve moved in and introduces them to Pansy and Daphne, arms already looped between the two of them, gushing about their huge, white snake.

Daphne wrinkles up her face and says that it better stay next door—Pansy agrees, but from the look Astoria shoots them both, doesn’t voice her opinion. Instead, she walks over to the man on Astoria’s left and holds her hand out. “Hello,” she says. “I’m the homeowner.”

The guy gives her an odd look, then grabs her hand—far too roughly—and shakes it hard. In a thick Boston accent, he says, “Right, well… I’m Will. Nice to meet ya.”

“Vincent,” the other man says, holding his hand out when his husband moves out of the way. “Welcome to Boston.”

“You’re not from here, are you?” Pansy asks. He shakes his head, grinning at her slyly.

“I’m from New Orleans.”

“Lovely,” Pansy turns and walks away. “I’ve made cupcakes, if you’d like some.”

She doesn’t turn around to check, but later, Astoria says they both grinned like little kids and chased after into the kitchen.

Their neighbors to the right are a family of wealthy muggles, which is a surprise. Pansy had been under the impression that this street was mainly wizards, but upon Astoria’s exploration, finds that not to be true. The lines between wizard and muggle blur far more in America than they do in England, in Pansy’s experience, but they usually still have mainly wizard areas.

The family shows up with pie on a Tuesday. Daphne and Astoria went into town to get artwork and other things to decorate the house with, so Pansy is left alone to greet them.

The parents appear to be in their late thirties, medium brown skin, smiling and holding up a pie as their three children grin up at Pansy in anticipation.

“Um,” Pansy says, very elegantly. “Hello.”

“Hi,” the mother says. “We wanted to introduce ourselves and welcome you to the neighborhood. I’m Laura; this is my husband, Travis, and our children, Elena, Guillermo, and Mateo.” Each child’s smile grows wider as their mother points to them. The smallest, Mateo, looks about five or so, and when Laura gets to him, he bounces up and down on his toes and then sticks his hand out for Pansy to shake. She stares down at it and considers hexing the boy just for the hell of it, but instead, she holds her own hand out and accepts his. 

“I’m Pansy,” she says, deadpan. 

“I’m Mateo!” he hollers, as if his mother hasn’t just introduced him. 

“The pie is cherry,” Elena says. “It’s really, really good.” 

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Pansy says, only half-joking. The Valdes family all laugh just the same, good-naturedly. “Um,” Pansy has suddenly lost all hope of manners. Though, she supposes that everything she’s ever learned from growing up in polite society back home hadn’t ever once been thought to be extended to an American Muggle family. “It’s lovely to meet you,” she settles on. “Thank you so much for the pie.”

“Do you have a husband?” Mateo asks. 

“MATEO,” his mother gasps, and yanks him back to her chest. “I’m sorry, he… hasn’t quite learned what sort of questions aren’t exactly appropriate when you first meet someone.”

“I’m twenty,” is all Pansy says in response. 

“Do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend?” Elena asks, with far more care than her little brother, but with all the invasive curiosity of a child under the age of twelve. Her brother—probably hovering somewhere around eight or nine—doesn’t seem to care about Pansy’s love life whatsoever. He stares forlornly over at his house. 

“No,” Pansy says, matter-of-fact. “I do not.”

“Oh,” Elena looks disappointed. “So, you live here all by yourself? That’s sad.”

“No,” Pansy says, before Laura or Travis can cut in and admonish her. “I’m with my friends. Daphne and Astoria.”

“Oh!” Elena perks up. “That’s better.”

“Is she gonna take the pie or not?” Guillermo asks. 

Pansy takes the pie. 

…

…

Summer in Boston is unbearably hot. 

They settle into the brownstone and start exploring and Pansy’s feet hurt from three weeks solid of wandering around all day at Astoria’s insistence. After they’ve been in America for a month, Astoria comes home one evening and declares that she’s gotten herself a job. 

A _muggle _job. 

In a shop. 

Pansy and Daphne both stare at her across the table. “What?” Daphne asks. “Getting coffee?”

“And teas, and cakes, and other things,” Astoria shrugs. “It seems fun.”

“No,” Pansy scoffs. “It does not.”

“Well… we don’t have any of our own money anymore,” Astoria says, pointedly. Daphne plucks a grape from the middle of the table and shoves it into her mouth, saying nothing. “And we can’t very well live off of Pansy’s money forever.”

“Sure, you can,” Pansy shrugs. “It’s my mother’s.”

“Exactly my point.”

“I don’t see how that’s your point, but alright.”

“I want to make my own money!” Astoria yells. She turns and glares at her sister. “You should too.”

“I’m not working in a muggle shop,” Daphne scoffs. 

“Then work in a wizard one,” Astoria demands. “I don’t care. But _do something._”

She stalks off upstairs, probably to _Floo _call Ginny Fucking Weasley or some other Gryffindor. Daphne chokes on a grape and Pansy has to spell it out of her. She’s in a rotten mood for the rest of the evening. Astoria never comes back out of her room, but Pansy can hear Daphne pacing the hall well into the night just in case. She drifts off somewhere around eleven and doesn’t wake again until she feels something prodding at her side, a few hours later. She rolls her head over and looks at the clock: 1:04 a.m. Daphne is trying to slide her way into Pansy’s bed. 

“Oh, thank Merlin you’re awake,” Daphne whispers, then shucks her nightgown up over her head and starts to tug Pansy’s shorts off. Pansy’s surprised. One, because she’d been dead asleep a moment ago, and two, because they haven’t done this in over a year. Daphne gets her shorts off in record time and quickly positions herself in between Pansy’s legs. Before Pansy can protest or ask her why _now, _Daphne’s mouth is on her clit and Pansy is hissing in familiar anticipation. 

“Fuck, Daph—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says. Pansy can see that desperate twinge to her face, even in the dark. Neither of her parents has _Flooed _or sent an owl in the whole month that they’ve been gone. Not a single member of the Greengrass family has acknowledged their presence. Pansy pictures her mother flouncing around in a silk kaftan and sipping her tea and making snide comments in Pansy’s direction and can’t ever _imagine _losing that. She tugs Daphne up and connects their mouths, Daphne kisses her hungrily, aching for contact and trying to stop thinking about the empty void where her family used to be. Pansy help her do that, at least. 

…

…

By the time that June slips into July, Daphne follows Astoria’s advice and finds a job in a wizard shop. She comes back home a week or so after Pansy’s twenty-first birthday and announces that she is a career woman. She helps sell clothes and books and artifacts in a wizarding part of the city, that feels _almost _like Diagon Alley. Pansy rolls her eyes but goes to the shop semi-regularly.

Astoria is thriving in her coffee shop. She has regulars and has made friends with her co-workers and goes out at night with them sometimes, leaving Pansy and Daphne to fend for themselves. 

Pansy hollers at her for it, because that’s how she communicates, and Astoria whips around and asks if Pansy could _be nice _to her friends and join along. 

“I’m never nice,” Pansy quips back and Astoria rolls her eyes. “I can be _civil, _if that’s what you’re asking,” she snaps. “I talk to Mateo Valdes almost every day and I haven’t hexed him _once._”

(She’s thought about it, though). 

“That’s because he’s a child and you like children.”

“I do _not._”

“You do, you just don’t like to admit it. You always looked out for the younger Slytherins, more than almost anyone.”

“That’s not true at all!” Pansy yells. “Take that back!”

Astoria rolls her eyes. “I don’t understand why you want everyone to think that you’re an arsehole.”

“I AM!”

Astoria leaves the room. 

“I AM!” Pansy screams again. 

Guillermo’s face appears in his open living room window. “You are _what?_” he asks.

“An arsehole.”

Guille scrunches up his face. “What’s that?”

“Same thing as an asshole, but British.”

“I’m not allowed to say that word.”

“Well, I am.”

Guille tilts his head to the side, considering this, then dismisses it for a new thought entirely. “Are you going to make those cookies again soon?”

Pansy has been experimenting with baking. She likes cooking proper meals better, but there’s something that she likes about baking sweets, too. The neighborhood children like it the best. Pansy’s not going to ruin her figure trying to eat everything, and Daphne has always hated sweets. Astoria samples everything with vigor and metabolites it faster than should be humanly possible. Out of retribution, Pansy gives it away to the Valdes children whenever she’s allowed Ria a taste. 

“Maybe,” Pansy calls out. “Are you and your brother going to shut up at seven a.m. anytime soon?”

“If we get cookies,” he counters. Smart lad. 

“Then I’m sure we could work something out.” 

Pansy leaves Guille to it and walks out of the kitchen in search of Daphne. She finds her, hunched over a book, trying to thread a needle and scowling. There’s blood pricking on two of her fingers already. 

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Julia knows how to infuse spells into clothes. Like to keep off the rain or the cold or heat. She said that she’d show me.”

“Julia that lady you work for?”

Daphne nods, not looking up from her task. 

Pansy sits down beside her. “Astoria is going out with her muggle friends again. She said that if we’re nice we can come.”

Daphne frowns. Pansy’s not entirely sure if it’s at the needle poking into her third finger or the notion of going out with her sister’s friends. It’s possible that both things are unappealing. 

“I’m curious. So, I’m going to be nice and go.”

“I don’t really want to,” Daphne says. 

“I’ll fuck you later if you come,” Pansy offers. Crass, but getting to the point of the matter. 

Daphne looks up and smirks, devilish, and Pansy wants to fuck her now, before they go. Daphne knows it, too. Fuck her. Pansy shoves her away and gets up before she crawls up Daphne’s body and does something sinful. 

“Alright,” Daphne says. “Let’s go be friends with the muggles. Might as well stick it to my parents as much as possible.” 

Pansy doesn’t comment on the way that her tone goes all raw and bitter. 

…

…

Pansy doesn’t like Astoria’s work friends. 

They’re _fine, _but they’re annoying. All of them, save one, are university students. Ayumi is studying art—sculptures and such—a boy called Jerome is studying history, Garrison is doing maths of some sort—Pansy tunes him out—and Fiona is studying women. 

“Sorry?” Daphne asks. “Women?”

“It’s not just about studying women,” she clarifies. “It’s about studying how gender and sexuality affect us. Politically, historically, that sort of thing.” 

“Ah,” Daphne says, a curious frown to her face. “But like, sorry for all the questions—”

“You didn’t ask me that many questions,” Garrison says. 

“Maths is boring,” Daphne says, easily dismissing him and turning back to Fiona. “So, what is your coursework like?”

Astoria reaches across the table and slaps at her sister, but Garrison doesn’t seem to mind the insult. The other girl, Clara, the one who’s not a student, smirks across the table at Garrison and insults him further. He takes this as good-naturedly as Daphne’s remark. So far, he’s the most easy-going guy that Pansy has ever met. 

Jerome is not easy-going at all. He never shuts up about this massacre or that war or something in between. Pansy _hates _him. 

He’s wonderful in bed, though. 

Astoria screams at Pansy when she finds them the next morning—Daphne had quirked her eyebrows at Pansy and made a motion that meant, _get on with it, then_—once she saw Pansy and Jerome circling each other, and so Pansy had. 

She hadn’t mentioned it to Astoria, though, because this wasn’t the kind of thing she ever mentioned to Astoria. 

“You cannot sleep with my friends and start drama,” Astoria bemoans, once Jerome has left the house. “Please, Pans.”

“I’m not starting anything,” Pansy says easily. “You are just a prude.”

“I am not!” she insists. From behind her, over by the counter, Daphne mouths, _she is. _

“Astoria,” Pansy says seriously. “Have you ever slept with anyone?”

“I’m not talking about this,” Astoria says, primly, and shoves herself away from the breakfast table. “I’m late for work.”

“Oh my god,” Pansy exclaims. “She _hasn’t, _has she?”

“Leave her alone,” Daphne says, serious. Pansy drops it. 

Jerome was a one and done sort of situation, anyway. 

…

…

When summer is creeping into fall, they go out to the ocean. 

Astoria spells them so they don’t get sunburns and runs out into the waves, hollering like an excited child, and not a girl of eighteen, edging her way towards adulthood. It takes a few hours for Pansy and Daphne to shuck off their embarrassment and all of the lessons imbued in them since childhood enough to join her. But by the time they do, they start racing each other down the beach, shrieking with laughter and falling into the wet sand or the water or shoving each other out of the way. The sun dips low toward the horizon and spills color into the sky and Pansy gasps for breath, pausing and staring up at it. 

She feels small. In a good way. 

Before, she felt small in a way that terrified her. The Dark Lord was the largest thing in her world, filling up every space and leaving nothing left for anyone else, even if you had given him your loyalty. Hogwarts made her feel the same way, sometimes only a bit different, she supposes. Now, the sky and the ocean lie before her, massive and unrelenting and daunting and Pansy feels so very small in comparison, but it doesn’t frighten her. She turns and watches Daphne laugh and tackle Astoria into the water, kissing her cheeks and tickling her sides and _screaming _with joy and love. They don’t have their parents anymore, but they have each other. 

Astoria lifts her head up and catches Pansy’s eye, and smiles. 

She still feels small. 

She feels young. Impossibly so. Pansy sticks her face up to the sky and lets out a whoop, then runs after her friends. 

…

…

The first year in Boston goes by quickly. It was June only days ago, it seems, and Pansy was eating cherry pie and getting to know her neighbors and learning new recipes and now, Astoria has turned nineteen, and they’ve given out candy to the Valdes children on Halloween, and suddenly, now it’s Christmas. 

She doesn’t go home. Daphne and Astoria try to get her to, but she refuses unless they come to. 

Daphne spends all of Christmas Day sulking in her room, no matter how many times that Pansy and Astoria try to entice her to come out with savory treats and milky teas. 

Eventually, they give up and Astoria falls asleep half on top of Pansy on the couch. She means to shove her off, she really does, but instead, Pansy finds herself wrapping the lithe girl up tightly and closing her eyes. 

When Daphne finds them in the morning, her eyes are bloodshot. None of them comment on this, and Daphne adds herself to the pile and they spend the whole day on the couch together like that, watching muggle television and eating the food that Pansy spent all day prior making. Their limbs are entangled the whole day long, Pansy wonders what their parents would think of it—probably that it was unbecoming. 

Pansy starts making it a point to casually touch them more, if nothing else than to fuck with the Greengrasses, whether they can see it or not. 

The allure of working in a muggle shop has long since worn off for Astoria, a girl who has never had to work a day in all her life before; but she is doggedly determined to see this through, no matter how much she hates it. Pansy thinks that’s stupid, but she doesn’t tell her to stop anymore—it only makes her furious and more determined to see it through. 

Daphne likes the clothes shop fine, because it’s less like work and more like learning spell work and having a chat and occasionally helping out a customer. She gets all the wizard gossip from the ladies who come into the shop and comes home and tells Pansy and Astoria all about it, like their very own Daily Prophet. 

Pansy grows impossibly bored of being cooped up in their big old house alone all day. She is not meant to be solitary. She refuses to work for a living, however, so instead, she goes over to Vincent and Will’s every day and bothers whichever of them is around. Vincent works from home, a few days a week, and Pansy pesters him and feeds him and helps him come up with new ideas for his novels. 

On days that he goes into some office over in Newton, Pansy goes for walks in the park, _Apparates _to the ocean—even though it’s freezing, now—or into the shops to add to her ever-growing wardrobe, or to the theatre, or, in the afternoons, to the Valdes household. Guille has somehow become Pansy’s favorite of the brood. At eight years old, he’s mostly silent and thoughtful and curious and an easy companion, so long as you give him a reason to be. Mateo is too energetic and enthusiastic and exhausting. Elena is fine, and Pansy likes her as much as she likes any child, but the only one that she willingly spends loads of time with is Guillermo. 

Draco doesn’t know what to make of this information. 

He visits a few weeks after the new year, _Apparating _over and humoring Astoria’s need to tug him all over Boston and show him _every goddamn thing she’s ever seen. _Pansy rescues him later and the two of them go out on their own, leaving the Greengrass girls to their early dinners and early jobs in the morning. 

Pansy pointedly loops her arm with Draco’s, ignores his sputtering surprise, and wanders down the moonlit streets of Boston. “I’ve missed you,” she tells him, same as she has every time they _Floo _each other or send owls. 

“Me too,” he says, same as always. 

“You should come and stay with us,” Pansy prods, yet again. She knows what his answer will be, but she loves him, and he’s been her best friend since before she can remember, so she is going to keep asking. 

“No,” he says. “I can’t leave Mum alone.” 

(Mum. Before, he would say that he couldn’t leave his parents. Pansy makes note of this and does not comment). 

“She’s a big girl, Draco.”

“Pans—” he sighs, and that’s the end of it—until Pansy asks him all over again in a few weeks. 

She tugs his arm and looks at the street they’re on, recognizing it. “Let’s go to a show,” she offers. “We’re near the theatre district.” 

“Alright,” Draco agrees. They sit in the dark and say nothing, but Pansy can tell that Draco’s enjoying himself, he’s always enjoyed the theatre. More so that her. 

By the time they walk home, Pansy tugs him half-asleep up the stairs and shoves him into the extra bedroom. Trousers still on. 

…

…

No one mentions The Row—it becomes its own thing, an event, like mentioning The War, everyone knows what you’re on about—but it hangs over the entire first year that they spend in Boston. Daphne sulks on Astoria’s birthday, on Halloween, on Christmas, New Year’s, and her own birthday—nearly a year after they’ve left with not a word. 

Astoria doesn’t sulk, but she has nightmares. Pansy wakes up sometime in the middle of September thinking that Daphne is trying to crawl into her bed and get laid but it’s Astoria, clawing at her for an entirely different reason. Pansy wraps her arms around Ria and says nothing through her shaky cries, just holds her tight. More often than not, Ria gets in Daphne’s bed when this happens, but lately, that seems to be the thing that makes Daphne sulk more, so she’s been coming into Pansy’s room instead. 

By the time that Daphne’s birthday comes around, Pansy’s been dealing with months and months of their moods and she’s sick of it. 

She _Apparates _back to London while they’re both at work. Two days after Daphne’s twenty-second birthday, halfway through May, Pansy waltzes to the Greengrass manor and bangs on the door. 

Eliza looks shocked to her core to see Pansy barge her way past the servant. “Hello,” she says, as snide as can be. “I was wondering if perhaps your birthday wishes got lost in the mail?”

Eliza’s hands hover over her teacup. Pansy blinks her eyes and looks innocent and hateful and waits for her response. 

“We told them to leave,” Eliza says, finally coming over the shock. Her voice goes prim and hateful, matching Pansy’s. “We meant it.” 

Pansy looks, desperate to see _something _that signals maternal loyalty, but she finds nothing there worth her time. She rolls her shoulders, tugs her wand out of her pocket, just a tinge, and spills Mrs. Greengrass’s tea into her lap. “Fuck you,” she sneers. “You aren’t worth them.”

She waltzes out the same way that she came in, Eliza Greengrass’s screeches rattling around in the air. 

She goes to Draco’s and tells him what she’s done and he looks _horrified. _For half a second he looks proud, but then it goes right back to horrified when he thinks of her spilling the hot tea. 

“She deserved it,” Pansy scoffs. “Your mother defied _The Dark Lord _for you, and their mother wouldn’t even stick around after he was dead and gone.”

Draco goes pale, the same as he always does at the mention of Voldemort. Pansy has only asked him a few times, what it was like to have him take up residence in their home and make Draco one of his soldiers. He’d gone pale and shaky and hadn’t been able to talk about it at all, and Pansy hasn’t tried again since. She doesn’t know how they can stand to still live here, she watches the way Draco walks through these halls sometimes and she knows that they’re tainted for him now. 

She wants to get him out. 

She asks, again. He says no, again. They hug and squeeze too tight and Pansy kisses him on the mouth to shock him in a fun way, instead of this sad, awful, endless way. 

Then she _Apparates _back home and bakes Daphne a feast fit for the gods. 

…

…

The thing about living in Boston is that everyone else that they care about doesn’t. 

They’re running away, again, only this time it’s more permanent. It’s not Pansy and Daphne traveling and living out of hotels and bouncing from place to place with no destination in mind other than _far. _It’s the three of them, forming a home. 

But it’s only the three of them. 

Astoria loves them both, but she became close with Gryffindors in the time they spent apart, bound in war in a way that bonds people as tightly as growing up alongside each other does, and she misses them like she’s missing a limb. 

(The same way that Pansy misses Draco). 

Daphne is the only one of them who is content. The two people that she cares about the most are right there with her and the rest can fuck off forever, as far as she is concerned. It’s what causes most of her fights with Astoria, because she can’t understand wanting anyone else but what they’ve got (no one mentions their parents) and Astoria doesn’t know how to explain it to her. 

Ginevra Weasley and Neville Longbottom show up for Astoria’s twentieth birthday and then stay a few days to celebrate Halloween. 

It’s deeply unsettling to have them stay in their home. Pansy gets up early and realizes that Ria has given Longbottom the extra room and Ginevra is sleeping in Astoria’s bed with her. She walks by and sees the two of them entangled in the same way that Pansy has slept with Astoria before and it tugs something awful and confusing inside her chest. She goes into the kitchen and cooks until it goes away. Then, Astoria and Ginny come stumbling downstairs, sleepy-eyes and limbs still flopping all over each other as they pass food and coffee back and forth and Pansy stares at them and decides that she likes the way that Ginny Weasley makes Astoria smile. 

It’s about as much acceptance as she is capable of, for now. 

(It still feels monumental, somehow. Astoria looks up at must catch some look on Pansy’s face that gives her away, because she goes all slack and won’t stop smiling at Pansy for the rest of the afternoon).

Longbottom comes into the kitchen with his hair matted in about eight different ways, already chatting with Daphne about her plants and Pansy almost has to stick her head out the window and scream because this is all _insane, _except that it’s not. 

The fact that it’s not feels the most insane of all, and Pansy decides not to deal with it. She is tangentially friends with Gryffindors. The Dark Lord lost. They graduated. None of them are teenagers anymore. It’s just… how life is going, now.

“What are we doing tonight?” she asks.

“I want to go to a muggle club,” Astoria says. Everyone around her reacts with different parts shock and excitement and disgust, but they all swallow it down or amp it up and nod at the one girl who is binding them all together. 

“Merlin’s beard,” Pansy mutters into her tea. 

Ginny knocks onto Pansy’s door frame later that evening and looks at her sheepishly. “Hi, um… Astoria says that you’re good at fashion things… um, does this look okay to you?” She poses, awkward as hell, her shoulders hunched forward and her head down. 

Pansy sighs. “I thought that you were supposed to be a brash and confident Gryffindor,” she chides. “Hold you goddamn head up, Weasley.”

“I feel like an idiot,” Ginny counters, biting at her lower lip in frustration. “I don’t know how to be sexy. I asked Ron once and he went red for a solid hour, and Fred and George were no help, and I still feel awkward talking to Fleur about these kinds of things, and my mum is—”

“Merlin’s sake, shut the fuck up,” Pansy says, before she lists her entire goddamn family. “Come here.” Pansy prods at her and Ginny doesn’t seem to mind. She adjusts her skirt, switches out her top for one that Pansy used to wear all the time, but hasn’t in a while. It goes with Ginny’s hair better than it goes with Pansy’s, anyway. She shoves Ginny down and fixes her makeup, then makes her stand up straight and act like a fucking idiotic lion. Once she’s got Ginny smiling and sort of flouncing around, half-joking, but having fun and feeling more confident in herself, Astoria peeks her head in and fucking _beams _at the sight of them. Pansy is never going to hear the end of it. Happy fucking birthday, Ria.

Neville looks as confused as Pansy and Daphne do to be in a muggle club. Astoria and Ginny are bouncing with excitement, and immediately run onto the dance floor and jump around and sway themselves around each other, laughing with no rhythm whatsoever.

“Um,” Neville gulps. “Shall we get a table? I’m not much of a dancer.”

“Thank fuck,” Pansy mutters and drags him along. Daphne stays with them at first, sipping at her drink and observing the place, but after a while, she can’t just sit still all night and runs out onto the dance floor with her sister. It only takes three songs before she’s dancing with Ginny as comfortably as her sister is, and Pansy stops trying to fight it anymore.

These idiots are important to Ria, so, Pansy is getting on board with things.

“What do you like, other than plants?” she asks Neville.

“Oh, um,” he sips his drink and makes a horrible grimace and puts it back down. “Loads of things. Quidditch, history, animals, um… more things that I’m forgetting at the moment because you’re sort of frowning at me.”

Pansy laughs. She likes how direct and honest Neville can be. She remembers him as a stuttering, nervous, pudgy boy, that’s not him anymore—apart from some of the nervousness.

“What do you like about plants?”

Neville holds his hands around his drink but doesn’t try to sip it again. Pansy doesn’t blame him; the stuff is awful and she doesn’t like much the feeling of being drunk anyway. She’s been sipping something called a Shirley Temple since Astoria laughed and gave it to her. He considers her question, which Pansy likes. She waits him out, letting him gather his thoughts and watching the girls twirl and laugh.

“I guess… I like being able to help things grow. There’s… some things need more water, some more sun, it’s a balance. There’s something calming to it for me, and they lift my mood,” he shrugs. “I’ve always found that things that just… make you happy and calm are good things to keep in your life, if you can.”

“Huh…” Pansy sips at her drink. “That’s… sort of why I like cooking, I think.”

Neville smiles at her, open and honest. Pansy gives him the rest of her drink.

…

…

Astoria finally gives up and quits her job a few weeks before Christmas. She stands there in the middle of the kitchen and waits for a lecture or an _I told you so, _from either of them but Pansy and Daphne both just look at each other and the say nothing.

“Want some eggs?” she asks, spatula hovering above the frying pan. “I’ve got spinach and that hot sauce you like.”

Astoria turns to her sister, waiting.

“Good for you, it was making you miserable,” Daphne says and turns back to her book. “Julia could always use help in the shop. I can ask her, if you like.”

Astoria sags down into the chair in relief, nodding to both of them. Pansy starts making her eggs. “That would be nice, thanks.”

“Of course,” Daphne shrugs.

…

…

Their second Christmas together, Daphne doesn’t go sulk up in her room for most of the day. She’s up at the crack of dawn, beating Pansy to the kitchen and making them all a pathetic spread of toast and bananas and tea which she puts on a tray. She must wake Ria first, because when they sneak into her bedroom together, Daphne has the tray in her hands and Astoria is still rubbing at her eyes. She barely says anything before crawling into bed beside Pansy and snuggling underneath the covers. “Mer’christmas,” she mumbles and knocks her head into Pansy’s shoulder and immediately closes her eyes.

“I made us breakfast!” Daphne announces and shoves the tray forwards.

Pansy looks at it dubiously, then rolls her head over to look at the clock. “Is there a reason that we needed it at half-past five?”

Daphne pouts. “I was trying to do something nic—”

Astoria grabs at her blindly and tugs her forward into the bed. “Shuuushhh, sleep.”

Pansy closes her eyes and ignores the two of them as much as possible as they make themselves comfortable in her bed. They all fall back asleep, toast gone hard and tea gone long past cold nearly six hours later, when they finally wake and crawl out of bed in search of sustenance.

They spend the rest of the day in their pajamas, listening to old radio plays from when they were children, drinking far too much eggnog and tea, and eating all the sweets they can stuff themselves with. (Daphne eats savory treats and grimaces when Pansy and Astoria offer her chocolate upon chocolate). Pansy allows them to help her make their dinner for the first time ever. She delights in ordering them about and watching the way they patiently—or not so—listen to her instructions and complete their assigned tasks. By the time that Pansy’s got Astoria chopping up vegetables with an almost practiced hand, Daphne has given up and perched herself upon the counter beside Pansy, sneaking bites of the raw vegetables before Pansy can smack her hand away.

They eat their feast on the floor in their sleepwear, marveling in how much it would horrify their parents to walk in on the sight of them. Pansy is full to aching by the time Daphne announces that she wants to go to the theatre. She wants to protest, but Daphne has been in good spirits all day and she loves the theatre, and Pansy doesn’t _hate _it, exactly.

Plus, she’s never turned down an opportunity to dress herself up and go out and look fabulous.

It’s a bitterly cold evening. Pansy tucks her coat tighter around her neck and whines until Astoria wraps herself around Pansy for warmth. Daphne has chosen a muggle show called The Nutcracker. Pansy is sure that she is going to hate it, but by the time intermission comes, she is as entranced with the dancers as the other girls are.

They walk home arm in arm in arm, the snow falling down gently all around them as they laugh into the bitter night. Pansy breaks away from the two of them as they reach their street and sticks her head back, tongue out, trying to catch a flake.

It’s long past his bedtime, but one of the windows from the Valdes house cracks open and Guille sticks his sleepy little head out. He looks down at Pansy and smiles. Pansy waves at him and then frowns at him until he rolls his eyes, closes the window back and goes to bed. She walks back into the house with Daphne and Astoria and feels… fuller, somehow. Like she’s slowly gaining back something she hadn’t quite realized had been lost.

…

…

Winter in Massachusetts is brutal and long.

Pansy starts _Apparating _home more often without telling Daphne or Astoria. She drops in on her mother and pesters her until she’s almost begging Pansy to leave and give her some peace and quiet. She drops in on Draco and drags him out of that old silent ghost-house. She goes shopping with Theo (and sleeps with Theo, twice, if only to have something to hoard over his head later). She dares Blaise to make out with Draco and delights in the way that both boys go absolutely beat-red and refuse to speak to her for days, after.

She never thought in all her life that she would _miss _England, but—

She does. She’s been away long enough to know that it’s not just because it’s familiar. It’s not because it’s easy and it’s where she grew up. She fits there. More than she does in Boston.

It’s a terrible revelation to have, because Astoria and Daphne are still basically shunned. There hasn’t been a drop of apology or anything resembling such from the Greengrasses, and most of the parents they all grew up with frown and titter and change the subject at any mention of Daphne or Pansy. Pansy wants to claw all their eyes out.

“If you want to come home, then come home,” Draco says, when she admits the urge to him sometime mid-February.

“It’s not that simple and you know it.”

“Pans—”

“The very reason I won’t come home is why you won’t come to Boston with me,” she snaps and he clamps his mouth shut, because he knows that she’s right. “I may be half-miserable, but at least I’m not lounging around Wiltshire with my parents like specters.” It’s a low blow—too low, probably—Draco folds in tight on himself and stares at her, deadly.

“I’m not having this fight with you again,” he says, instead of saying _fuck right off, Pans. _She deflates and then he does too. She doesn’t want to have this fight again, either. She wants the urge for it to crop up to disappear. She wants him to come to Boston. To bring Theo and Blaise and for it to start to feel like home the way England does. She wants things to go back to the way they were, before the war. She wants it to be simple.

“Theo moved to London,” Draco says. “Blaise is going to move to Liverpool.”

Pansy scrunches up her face. “What for?”

Draco shrugs. “Something different than his parent’s.”

“Which is what you need,” Pansy says, because not wanting to have a fight about it doesn’t mean that it’s not still _true. _

“I’ve… been thinking about it,” he says, and a spark inside Pansy goes off like a rocket. “I’m not moving to Boston,” he says, squelching it immediately. “But… out of Wiltshire, maybe. It’s going on five years since…” he trails off, the sentence hanging in the air between them. Pansy doesn’t move to fill it and Draco swallows thickly and presses on. “Theo and I get on enough to maybe—”

“No, you do not,” Pansy scoffs. “You’d kill each other within a week.”

“I could get my own, then.”

“Or—”

“I’m not moving to bloody Boston!”

Pansy sulks for an hour and refuses to talk to him on principle, then _Apparates _home after getting in the last word.

…

…

Daphne has Astoria in a headlock.

Pansy walks into the brownstone, arms full of groceries and stares at the sight of them. Astoria pinches Daphne’s underarm and she _squeals. _Pansy goes to set the groceries down, side-stepping them both.

“FUCK YOU,” Astoria screams, after a few minutes of bickering that increases in volume.

“You’re not setting a very good example for the Valdes children,” Pansy calls out, primly.

One of them chucks a throw pillow at her head with impeccable aim. Daphne, then. Astoria can’t aim for shit. Pansy turns around and puts her hands on her hips and glares at them and is horrified with herself once she realizes that she must look like her mother. “Fuck,” she breathes. “I’m getting out of here. She puts the last of the groceries away, picks up the pillow and slams it down onto Daphne’s head as she side-steps past them again. “I’m going to hang out with the eight-year-old from next door, he’s far more mature than either of you,” she announces.

Astoria’s managed to get Daphne in a headlock now, it will only last seconds, her spindly little arms have no muscle to them whatsoever.

Sure enough, Ria screams in frustration, Daphne screams in triumph, and Pansy slams the door shut behind her.

…

…

Half-way through March, Daphne gives Julia her two-week notice and decides that she’s going to learn to be a waitress in a wizard restaurant.

It shocks the hell out of Pansy and Astoria both and they make a bet about how long she’ll last before she quits. Astoria likes the clothes shop fine, but Pansy can tell that she’s getting antsy and bored and missing everyone from back home. Hermione Granger is away at university—muggle university—and she studies all the time and Astoria has to _Apparate _in and drag her away from her books in order to spend any time with her. Pansy listens to her bemoan this at the kitchen table with Ginny and sips at her tea. Sounds like nothing with Granger has changed since Hogwarts, then. She can understand why Ria gets on with Ginny, even Neville, when she thinks about it, but _Granger? _She can’t see the appeal. Astoria swears that she is a lovely person and that she misses her terribly, so.

Whatever.

Ginny has started even more training with a junior Quidditch team and she is busting her ass trying to prove herself enough to maybe get scouted for one of her favorite teams. Whenever she _Apparates _over, she is exhausted and full of bruises. But Pansy can tell that she is having a blast. She can’t imagine enjoying running around and getting sweaty, but then, sports have never once appealed to her.

Neville and Luna have both started new jobs and seem busy and happy and Pansy even starts hearing news about Harry_fucking_Potter and his goddamn Weasley.

(Ron has been working at his brother’s joke shop for the last year or so, apparently. They’re discussing co-ownership. Pansy has no idea what that means, but Ginny seems very happy about it. Potter, is training to be a fucking auror. Because of _course _he is).

Pansy has no idea what Luna Lovegood does, other than make Ginny blush just as much as she does when she talks about Harry_fucking_Potter. She’s not touching that with a ten-foot pole.

Pansy doesn’t care about any of these updates, but she accepts them. Listening along while she cooks or sips her tea, or tries on new clothes as Astoria lounges around and talks about her friends and grows more and more irritable with her sister.

Daphne comes in and flops down onto the couch, groaning about how much her feet hurt, and how _terrible _it is to be poor, and Pansy and Astoria both ignore her for a solid two minutes to keep her edging towards humble. Then Ria walks over and tugs her sister’s shoes off and pulls out her wand for a healing spell while Pansy puts food on the coffee table in front of her. Daphne flips her body over in a backwards…. something and lands with a thud that has Pansy wincing. She ignores it and immediately starts scarfing the food down. Mouth full, she says, “Working for a living is _hard._”

“I wouldn’t know,” Pansy says, smirking.

Daphne pinches her—hard.

…

…

Astoria crawls into Pansy’s bed at three a.m. She hasn’t had a nightmare in months and Pansy rolls over on instinct to hug her but Ria shoves her back. “I’m fine,” she insists quickly. “Well, _no, _I’m not, but it’s not… that’s not,” she sighs. “I didn’t have a nightmare.” She presses her lips together and Pansy can see the anxiety wafting off of her now, there are tears in her eyes.

Pansy is going to kill Daphne.

“What’d she do?” Pansy hisses, rising to go jump on top of her and slap her silly.

Astoria shoves her back down onto the bed. “No,” she says, fierce. “It’s me you should slap.”

Pansy scoffs. She would never.

“It _is,_” Ria insists. “I’m… I want to break our blood pact. I’m a terrible sister. I’m a terrible person.”

_“You are not,”_ Pansy hisses, as fierce as can be.

“I am,” Ria insists. “I… Pans, I want to go home.”

“What, is that all?”

“Pans,” she says, and flops down onto the bed, pressing her palms over her eyes. “I thought being here would be lovely. I thought it would solve all our problems. We’d be away from our parents, from everyone who would be… well… We’d be away from the remains of The War. We’d get to make our own lives, together. I thought — I thought I’d be happier.”

“Me too,” Pansy admits.

Astoria whips around and stares at Pansy. Their noses almost touching. “Really?” she asks, almost desperate. Pansy feels that way too. She would have continued on like this, she knows it to her core. She never would have blown this up and abandoned them. Not in a million years. She would have gotten over it, or she would have accepted being miserable. For them. She would have. But… the knowledge that she’s not alone in feeling like this life doesn’t quite fit is…

Pansy has never been more desperate in all her life. Except, of course, when—

Pansy shakes the thought away. She’s not a terrified seventeen-year-old girl anymore, staring up at the teachers who were supposed to protect her, having the whole of Hogwarts turn and—

“Me too,” she repeats, pressing those thoughts, down, down, down. “I miss Draco,” she says, because it seems like the most pressing thing. “I miss home. I didn’t think that I would, but,” she shrugs.

“Me too,” Astoria whispers. “I miss Ginny and Hermione and Neville and Luna and everyone.”

“That’s not everyone,” Pansy says, because she’s a brat. Astoria clonks their foreheads together and Pansy grunts at the impact. She is a brat, too. “Daphne likes it here,” she says.

“Does she?” Astoria asks.

“Yes,” Pansy says. Sure.

“But do you think—”

“I don’t know.”

Astoria clonks their foreheads together for an entirely different reason, this time.

…

…

Daphne waltzes into the kitchen on May 17th and glares at them both.

“We have a celebration planned for later—”

“I cannot believe that I have to into work on my birthday,” she whines. “This is a travesty.”

“You could quit,” Pansy offers. Daphne doesn’t seem to find this funny or helpful, so Pansy hands her a mug of hot tea with one sugar and a splash of milk instead.

“I can’t believe that I’m twenty-three,” she flops down into a chair and accepts the tea.

“An old woman,” Pansy agrees.

Daphne scowls at her. “You’re right behind me. Only a month or so.”

“Plus a whole year,” Pansy laughs, poking at Daph’s side.

“Hermione was old for the school year, too,” Astoria offers up. “Her birthday is in September. She’ll be twenty-three, same as you.”

“Goody for me,” Daph says. “I match with Granger.”

“If you want your birthday present, you’d better not say anything mean about her,” Astoria warns.

“Yes, yes,” Daphne waves her off. “I know, Granger is off-limits. All your Gryffindors are. Who _can _we make fun of now?”

“Hufflepuffs,” Pansy offers.

“No,” Astoria yells. “No one.”

“Well, that’s a terrible way to spend a birthday,” Daphne groans. “I have to go to work _and _I have to be nice. Horrible.”

“Um…” Astoria mumbles. “Speaking of Hermione…”

“We weren’t, you were,” Pansy corrects her.

“Yes, well, _speaking of Hermione,_” she tries again. “Her graduation from university is in a few days and I wanted to go and cheer her on with Ginny. We want everyone to come. To surprise her and support her. It’s a very big deal.”

Pansy and Daphne both frown at her.

“_Also,_” Astoria says, looking at Pansy pointedly. Pansy kicks her underneath the table. Daphne’s birthday is _not _the day for this conversation. Astoria doesn’t stop talking though. Pansy is going to have to kill her. “I was also thinking… Ginny is getting a new flat closer to her team in London. And Luna already works in London. Neville is moving there too, for his herbology studies. Which! You like, Daph!”

“Get to your point soon, Ria,” Daphne demands. “I really am going to be late if I don’t go soon.”

“I was thinking of maybe… well, Mum and Dad hardly go into London much anymore… and it’s such a big place, and well…” she trails off into a full mumble that neither of them understands, but from the words prefacing them, the sentiment is clear. Pansy holds her breath.

Daphne pushes away from the table silent. Then she says, “I’m going to be late for work,” and walks out of the house.

“Fuck,” Pansy breathes and reaches over to slap Astoria’s arm. “Not on _her birthday._”

“I’m sorry! I panicked!”

Pansy drops her head down onto the table.

By the time that Daphne comes home from work, they’ve spelled the house chock full of decorations. New plants, steamers, balloons, candles, the works. Pansy’s made a vanilla cake and Daphne’s favorite meat pie and she’s sat with Astoria on the couch, surrounded by presents. They both jump up and holler “SURPRISE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” at the top of their lungs and Daphne jolts and smiles, despite herself. Astoria jumps forward and yanks off Daphne’s shoes and does a healing spell and shoves her towards Pansy. They push her onto the couch and give her the meat pie and light the candles on the cake and sing terribly loud and off-key at her.

“Eat quickly,” Pansy demands. “My present is tickets to the theatre and we’ve got to be ready in half an hour.”

Daphne bites into the steaming pie and groans happily. “I love you both,” she says.

“We love you, too,” Astoria says, serious as she grabs her sister’s hand. Their matching scars touch and they both look down at them. “About this morning—”

Daphne holds up her other palm, stalling her sister. “Not right now, _please._”

Astoria bites her tongue and nods.

They dress to the nines and walk into the cool spring air arm in arm in arm. Daphne in the middle. She’s bouncing with excitement and she jumps to her feet and cheers at the finale before anyone else can think about standing. She can’t stop talking about the play the whole way home and she’s vibrating with happiness and Pansy loves her, so, so much.

Astoria goes up to bed a few minutes before the two of them and Pansy gives Daphne a sideways look and raises her eyebrows. Daphne drags her into her bedroom, shucking their clothes as they go. It’s become a birthday routine, at this point. Pansy presses Daphne into the mattress and captures her right nipple with her mouth, Daphne hissing up into her, back arched and eyes closed.

“We can go,” she whispers.

“What?” Pansy lifts up.

Daphne looks at her seriously. “Back home. Well, _no. _To London. If you both want to, that’s okay. I’ll come.”

“Daph, we don’t have to—”

“It’s really okay, Pans,” she whispers and Pansy can see, even in the dark, that she’s telling the truth. “I… wanted this to work. I like it here. I’m content. But, if you two aren’t… then I’m not either.” Pansy drops her forehead down to Daphne’s stomach in relief. _They can go home. _Daphne laughs and it pushes Pansy’s head up and down. “If you’re going to put your face down there, put it further down and do something useful with it. I just gave _you _a present and it’s _my _birthday,” she says. “You owe me, Parkinson.”

Pansy lifts her head up, all smirking charm and laughs. “Happy fucking birthday, Daph,” she says, and then makes her scream loud enough it wakes Astoria, who howls and never lets either of them hear the end of it.


End file.
